~*Mandy*~
5 years had passed now since Jason and Vanessa had been taken away, and I had changed. Putting on the rose necklace that Sir Jason had given me as a child, I went to visit Aaron. “Sir?” I asked, wondering why he had called me to his office. I was 18 now, and I had become a strong fighter, a worker for Pandora. We would go around, fighting chains that would surface from the abyss, and locate those who had made illegal contracts to get out of the abyss. Aaron looked up from his desk.
“I have a mission for you and Neko to go on.” He said. “Would you please go and get him for me and come back. I would rather tell you both at the same time.” He said. I nodded and left for Neko, or, actually, John. He had decided to go by Neko now, I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I respected his wishes, and only occasionally called him John, especially when I was being serious, or, drunk.
The year after Jason had been taken to the abyss, I was a mess. I was shy, awkward, and confused when Aaron showed up and took John and I away to Pandora’s headquarters and recruited us. I was unbelievably weak in the beginning; I broke my wrist and sprained pretty much everything that could sprain. But I grew tougher, and taller. My hair had grown, and my body gained a healthy amount of muscle and fat. Going through puberty was hard, there weren’t many women that were around, so my slight fear of men drained away. I got more looks from them as time went on, and a few of them even asked me on dates, but I turned down all of them. My heart still belonged to Jason, even if he didn’t know it. He would come back someday, and I would wait until that day came. I eventually found John in his room. He had changed a lot too.
“Hey, Aaron said he needed to talk to us.” I told him.
“Ok, another mission?” He asked . I nodded. He had grown tall, and his hair was medium length, but still as messy as ever. He had made a legal contract with Cheshire Cat a year earlier, and since then, his eyes had become cat like, but still retaining their purple color. John had become a good friend, someone who took care of me when I needed it most, which was when I decided to drink. I knew it wasn’t good for me, but sometimes, things got too overwhelming, and that was the only way I knew how to escape for a while. I would black out, and not be able to remember what happened. I tried to control it, but once in a while, it was like it controlled me. I had been good lately, my last bad episode happened a couple weeks ago. John usually had to carry me to my room as I rambled on about how I had failed as a valet, and how someone should have taken me to the abyss and allowed me to rot there for eternity. We down stairs to Aaron’s office. He had allowed us to stay on the second floor for all this time, and for that we were grateful. He was still sitting in his chair when we walked in.
“Ok, so, we have a new mission?” I asked. Maybe we were going to go to Jamaica again! The rum there was so delicious!
“Yes, indeed you both do. There has been sightings of a chain that I need you to go investigate. You may or may not run into it, I just want to gather more information on it. I assume you both have had an uneasy feeling? You two have made legal contracts with chains, so I would think you could sense a disturbance in the abyss.” I nodded immediately.
“Yes.” I had made a contract with Equis, the beautiful black horse. I could send it into the shadows of others, and spy, gather information, things like that. If abyssal energy was high enough, it could even make portals, but at the expense of a lot of energy. “I have a strange feeling something has happened, or will happen very soon.”
“I agree, something is up.” John agreed with me.
“Aaron!” I exclaimed. He blinked at me.
“Yes?” He asked.
“Where are we going?!” I asked.
“Oh, yeah, I should tell you where to go.” He smiled.
